Defense Against Spiders
by potterslashforevah
Summary: OoTP AU. Snape wants Tom Riddle's old diary. Harry wants to get to the Ministry to rescue Sirius.


This is an AU where Severus never came to work for Albus as the Potions Master. After Voldemort returns, he uses his influence at the Ministry to have one of his Death Eaters appointed as the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor at Hogwarts.

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**Defense Against Spiders**

Harry writhes under the Cruciatus Curse, his limbs splayed and jerking, his head thudding against the hard floor. Pain tickles his nerves, seductive and dark, promising him relief beyond measure, promising him if he surrenders ... He bites his tongue, the ordinary anguish grounding him against the agony, the temptation, the lure of the Cruciatus. He will not yield.

A blur of noise and color surrounds him, the world out of focus with the pressure of the curse upon him. Another world beckons, gleaming and pearly, almost within his reach. The intense joy of it tickles his nerves and he leans closer, closer, closer.

"Stop."

The pain is lifted from Harry and he trembles, his nerves afire with relief. He is jerked back into Snape's office, the myriad shades of black and gray a shock after seeing the shining, beckoning world beyond. Harry draws his arms and legs in to his body, huddling in a ball on the cold floor.

"Yes, Miss Granger?" Snape's voice flows over Harry's inflamed nerves like balm, like manna.

"I'll ... I'll tell you everything if you promise not to hurt him any more."

Long thin fingers thread through his hair, and Harry winces at the touch. After the agony, it is too much - he protests, but a high-pitched whine comes from his throat. Those long fingers yank at his hair and he falls silent under the onslaught of fresh pain.

"Well, girl? Tell me."

"It ... well ... do you really want them to hear about this?"

Snape dismisses his Inquisitorial Squad, and they leave without arguing. Harry keeps his eyes squeezed shut, he focuses on the rhythm of their footsteps, the vibrations in the floor. There is a pause, and the last of them kicks him in the ribs, Malfoy saying, "You scream like a girl, Scarhead," before the sound of his steps is gone.

"Well, girl, where is the diary?"

"It's in the Forest, sir." Hermione's voice is calm, firm, at the exact know-it-all pitch of the answers she gives in class. "The Headmaster wanted to store it far away from the school so that it could never be used to open the Chamber of Secrets again."

"Very well," Snape says. "You'll lead me there, and if I perceive one wrong move, one false direction, even the slightest hint of treachery, I'll put Potter under the curse again. Do you understand?"

Harry grunts and stirs when Snape's boot hits his ribs, prodding him without mercy until he drags himself to his feet. Eyes closed, the blackness a relief after the agony and the brightness of the world he had glimpsed, Harry sways on his feet. Hermione takes his elbow and guides him to the door, her pace slow enough to earn a reprimand from Snape.

Snape's dark robes blend into the forest shadows, but Harry has a supernatural sense of him. Every slight movement of his wand, every flicker of wind brushing against it makes Harry lurch in anticipation of pain that never comes. The hidden world beyond the pain waits for him, promising him surcease and joy, and Snape is the dark, cruel guardian to that world. Harry shakes as he follows Hermione deeper into the forest, and he lets the aftereffects of the curse wash through him like blood blending into still water.

"What do you need the diary for, sir?" Hermione asks, and Snape shoves his wand into Harry's back, a sudden sharp impact that makes him grunt.

"No foolish questions, girl. Silence."

"Silence," the new Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor said. He swept into the room and thudded a cage of white mice on his desk. They squeaked at the impact, huddling together in a corner of the cage. Snape reached in and pulled one out by the tail, holding it aloft.

"I can see from my predecessors' notes that your education has been lacking. A room full of incompetent dunderheads, not fit to fight a Cornish pixie or identify a werewolf - the wizarding world is in a sad state if you are its future."

Snape circled the classroom, his beaky nose and swirling robes making him look like a swooping hawk. Harry squirmed in his seat and won the professor's attention.

"Ah, yes, the famous Harry Potter - Mr. Potter, you are widely renowned as the boy who defeated darkness, as the champion of light. Can you tell me then, what is this darkness that you defend us all against?"

Snape dropped the mouse on Harry's desk, and it curled in on itself, a small white ball. Harry stared at it, watched the trembling whiskers, the translucent ears, the shaking.

"No?" Snape crossed his arms. "How does a pitiful little brat expect to defend the world against darkness if he doesn't know what darkness is?"

Harry swallowed, watching the mouse tremble. It cowered in the center of his desk, too afraid to move.

"What are the three darkest curses?" Snape asked. "What is so dark that it is considered unforgivable?"

"Crucio, Avada Kedavra, and Imperius, sir," Hermione answered. "We covered them last year ..."

"Raise your hand before you presume to speak.

"Would you agree, Mr. Potter? Are those curses dark?"

Harry's fingers tightened around his quill. "Yes, sir."

"So the celebrity can speak after all," Snape said. "Very good. If you've no further wisdom to share with us, Mr. Potter, then I suggest that you show us all that you understand what darkness is."

"Sir?" Harry looked up at Snape.

Snape swooped down like a hawk, one bony finger jabbing at the mouse. "Cast the Cruciatus Curse on this mouse, Potter."

"But sir ..."

"Do not speak without raising your hand, Miss Granger. Well, Mr. Potter? We're waiting."

"No," Harry said. His stomach clenched at Snape's black glare, but he refused to lower his gaze. "I won't do that. You've no right to ask me."

"Twenty points from Gryffindor for disobeying a professor, Mr. Potter. Be reasonable - how can you expect to fight darkness if you don't understand it?"

"I don't have to do it to know that it's wrong."

"A week of detention for your defiance, Potter, unless you do as I say."

"I will not."

"Silence," Snape ordered as the class broke out into whispers. "Silence."

Silence sweeps through the forest at the sound of footsteps, a creeping and inexorable hush falling upon the wildlife. Patience, treachery, anticipation, the forest resonates with the masked glee of the waiting creatures - eaters of flesh and bone, eaters of soul and spirit. Patience is its own reward and Nature, dark-souled and dark-blooded, lets her prey blunder into the trap. The cold breeze creeps along Harry's skin, tickling his inflamed nerves, and he shudders.

There's another world - ethereal and lovely, filled with silence that flows like music, like rainbows from one arc to the next. It's a dance, immutable and incomprehensible, like the eternal dance of the night sky that is beyond his grasp. "The stars make noises like this silence, deep in the sky," Harry says.

Snape whirls Harry around, hands rough on his shoulders, and stares into his eyes before shaking him. Open-handed, Snape slaps Harry across the face, the sound ringing out in the quiet of the forest.

"Idiot, senseless boy," Snape says, shaking Harry. "Fight the pain, don't surrender to it. Fight it, Potter.

"You're at Hogwarts. You're here with us in the Forbidden Forest. Damn it, boy, I told you that you need to understand the Dark Arts if you're to have any hope of fighting against them."

Harry coughs and blinks. "Pro-Professor Snape?"

Snape releases Harry's shoulders and takes a step backwards. His eyes hooded, his mouth stern and unrelenting under his beaky nose, Snape is a hawk of the night - predator and prey, captor and protector, contradiction embodied. He offers pain, he offers salvation.

The silence stretches between them, an elastic bridge that thins and breaks, shattering the moment they shared in the darkness. Snape draws his wand and points it at Harry. "Let us continue, Miss Granger. Lead me to the diary."

Hermione veers left, and Snape follows her, his wand jabbing the small of Harry's back. The smell of the Forest rises around them, the smell of growth and decay, the rich and vibrant cycle that feeds itself and seeks to feed upon them. Harry shivers and grasps Hermione's elbow.

She doesn't know the Forest as he does, she doesn't know the paths and the traps and the creatures lurking here. Harry feels her faltering, her arm trembling in his grasp. She slows her pace to match his, and Snape prods Harry, sharp and solid - Snape's touch is an anchor in the spinning world, a fixed compass.

"Hurry," Snape says in his black velvet voice, a deep warmth that wraps around Harry's inflamed nerves, "hurry, Miss Granger, or I will curse him. The mind is a delicate, tenuous thing. It has more subtlety and complexity than you will ever understand, but even though you may not understand the precipice, the knife's blade, you understand the fall. Potter's mind is on the verge of breaking, the edges of madness. The first hint of treachery from you, the first whisper of deceit, and I will curse him. He will writhe like a spider and he will break."

The spiders writhed in the glass jar, throwing their bodies against the sides in bouncing, unending agony. Malfoy smirked, the light reflected from the glass jar in his pale eyes. "So, Scarhead, you're afraid of the darkness. It's too bad you can't run home crying to your mum and dad, isn't it?"

Snape stalked into the classroom, his robes swirling around him, and stopped in front of Harry's desk. He flinched, his expression open for an instant, and with a slight shudder, he Banished the jar of spiders. "Pets are not allowed during detentions, Potter. That will be another week, for your constant disrespect and flouting of the rules."

"But sir -"

"Two weeks," Snape said. He waited, and when Harry was silent, he turned to Malfoy. "Thank you for volunteering to supervise Potter's detentions, Mr. Malfoy, but as you can see, your assistance is unnecessary."

Malfoy nodded and smirked, every inch the simpering teacher's pet, and he kicked Harry's ankle as he flounced out of the room. "See you later, Scarhead."

"You are a mere babe in the woods, Potter, a simpleton with no notion of the dangers that you face. You defeated the Dark Lord with nothing other than pure luck, and your bullheaded ignorance will not serve you well when you next face him."

With bright agony, Harry's scar burned. Echoes of his dreams lingered there, unending hallways and unopened doors, and he braced himself against Voldemort's latest round of torment. Snape's words flowed over him, unheeded and unneeded, and he bit his lip to stop the pain, anchoring himself.

"What are you waiting for, Potter? Scrub the floors, I said. If the precious, almighty Savior of the World is too good to dirty his hands with menial labor, then perhaps I can find other punishments ..."

Harry reached out, grasping, grabbing the rough brush, and he fell to his knees. The impact on the stone floor jarred him, shook him out of the pain, and he bent to his task.

"You've shown a remarkable affinity for the Unforgivable Curses, Potter. You may refuse to attempt them, but they sing in your veins, don't they? The temptation is almost too much for you to bear, I can see that now. You want to master them. You want to master the curse that took your parents from you. You will master it.

"You've resisted two of the three thus far, Mr. Potter. Most impressive, and yet I wonder ... I wonder what effect the third curse would have on you."

Harry froze, the brush falling from his fingers. Snape's words no longer flowed over him, no longer comforted and consoled him - like ice in his veins, they froze him. Blinking, hesitant, he looked up.

Snape was at the front of the room, his wand pointed at Harry, a sneer upon his face. Like acid, his words dripped into Harry. "You will never be able to revenge your parents' death until you have mastered all three curses, Potter."

The wand never wavered while Harry squirmed. "Will you beg me to stop? Will you dance in your agony? Will you writhe like those pathetic spiders?"

Harry stumbles, and in the instant that Snape's wand is not jabbing into his back, he squeezes Hermione's elbow. Guiding her, directing her, he pushes her onto the path that he knows well.

Through the darkness, through that waiting presence, patient predator and wary foe, they go deeper into the forest. Harry clutches Hermione's arm, and Snape glides through the darkness, graceful and unhesitating. He prods Harry to make them go faster.

They go deeper into the darkness, deeper into the forest - as they go, the shining world that beckons at the edge of Harry's vision fades. The agony burns his scar, the uncounted hallways and the unopened doors tormenting him. Sirius -

"Stop," Snape says. Harry stumbles over his feet, lurching into Hermione and clinging to her arm.

The spiders swing down from their branches, and Harry recovers his balance in time to see Snape turn pale.

"What?" Shaking, stuttering, he falls back and stumbles into Harry. Their bodies brush together for an instant, and Snape is warm and breathing and real.

"Go," he tells them. "Go and get the diary - I will take care of this."

He is trembling, he is pale, he is undone by the spiders. He is the author of Harry's torment, he is the guardian of the gate into that shining world that beckons and holds his parents safe.

"Hermione, we -"

"Go," Snape orders them.

Hermione grabs Harry's arm and pulls him away, pulls him into a lurching run. Harry's knees buckle, and he lets himself be dragged along the path, through the darkness and toward the light, toward the edge of the forest. He turns as they run, watches the bright light shake and stutter as it emerges from Snape's wand. He turns and watches until Snape's pale face disappears, swallowed up by the darkness of the forest.

"Come on, Harry, we need to hurry," Hermione says, pulling on his arm and urging him to greater speed. Stumbling, he watches behind them until he can no longer see the flashes of curse-light.

They disappear, and then there is nothing left but darkness. There is darkness, and there are countless hallways and countless doors, and there is the pain of Voldemort in his mind, and Sirius who needs to be rescued. It is enough - Harry yields. He yields to the world that is harsh and real around him, abandoning Snape to the forest and the spiders, abandoning the world of shining promise.

**The End.**


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